Mining Light (Luz Minera) is the name of the winner project of the second edition of the Public Art Ideas Contest, an event from the EDP Foundation, aimed for art, design and architecture students, with the goal of supporting projects that bring together art and architectural design joint activities, that contribute to reactivate art in the rural world, and that have a positive impact in the improvement of the innovation and social inclusion.

The winner, a project to intervene in the urban planning of the town hall square of Tineo (Asturias), follows the traces of history to boost the commercial function in this area of multiple uses, guarding it from the inclement conditions. If during the pandemic, a temporary construction had achieved that the commercial and festive activity lighted up the town center once again, with this project it is attained that this light continues to exist.

Mining Light is an idea of two students of the Art School of Oviedo, from the degree Ephemeral Architecture, moved by the intention of solving human needs in a creative exercise that follows the tradition of the Asturian architecture. Its designers explain as follows: “In a mining, industrial and livestock region, as Tineo, we have decided to recreate an architectural mining lamp. A new volume is built over the viewpoint, the same way the former Warehouse gallery of Tineo used to. A system of detachable pieces creates a resounding volume that is diluted into smaller pieces that adapt to the uses of the year. These new pieces colonize the various adjacent squares, while forming a constellation of light in a town whose sky remains black at night".

The public presentation of the winner idea has taken place this morning in the Cultural Center of Tineo, in an event attended by the General Director of Urban and Regional Planning - Principality of Asturias, Sonia Puente Landázuri; the Mayor of Tineo, José Ramón Feito Lorences and the Director of the EDP Foundation, Vanda Martins. The approach of the second edition of the Public Art Ideas Contest was the drafting of projects for the urbanistic improvement of Tineo’s town hall square, in terms of sustainability and of participation and social inclusion, relying on the conclusions of a process of citizenship participation about the needs of the council’s neighbors. Six finalist projects, carried out by students of the Universities of Granada, Zaragoza, A Coruña and the Polytechnic of Cataluña, got to the final stage of the Public Art contest. The contest has three prizes for the best ideas, of 14 000, 2 000 and 1 000 euros, respectively.

Moreover, the students that have drafted the winning project will put their idea into practice with the collaboration of Tineo’s council. In the event, celebrated in Tineo, the second and third prizes of the competition, “El Ágora de Tineo” and “Madreñas” respectively, have also been presented. Tineo’s mayor, José Ramón Feito Lorences, expressed his gratitude towards the EDP Foundation “for having chosen Tineo to carry out an intervention that combines creativity, innovation, art and youth, in order to improve the life of the people and developing a public space of coexistence like the town’s center square.” For her part, the director of the EDP Foundation, highlighted that “what makes the difference between this initiative and other contests is, on the one hand, the dialogue with the community to get to know their relationship with the place of intervention, and on the other hand, that the winning idea will be executed, with the help of the council, but having the project’s creators as the main characters. To the general director of Urbanism, Sonia Puente, “it is worth noting the quality of the ideas received from students all over Spain, that reflect the interest of young students to promote polyvalent public spaces, sustainable and enhancing social inclusion and intergenerational relations.”

El Ágora de Tineo and Madreñas, second and third prize

El Ágora de Tineo is a project designed by two students of the Superior Technical School of Architecture, of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia. One of them studies Architecture and the other one Sustainable Intervention in the Built Environment. The idea contemplates a refurbishment of the area and its stimulation, favoring the pedestrian preference, adding traffic lights, restoring the façade and adding sustainable drains. For its part, Madreñas, created by two students of the Superior Technical School of Architecture of the University of A Coruña, suggests an intervention that pursue the memory of the former fractioned vegetal space, and aims to offer the public space to neighbors, through a project that turns it into an space that they themselves may conquer, in which the inhabitants are the main characters.